Is China a rogue donor\, as some media pundits suggest? Or is China helping the developing world pave a pathway out of poverty\, as the Chinese claim? This well-timed book provides the first comprehensive account of China's aid and economic cooperation overseas. Deborah Brautigam tackles the myths and realities\, explaining what the Chinese are doing\, how they do it\, how much aid they give\, and how it all fits into their "\;going global"\; strategy. Will Chinese engagement benefit Africa? Using hard data and a series of vivid stories ranging across agriculture\, industry\, natural resources\, and governance\, Brautigam's fascinating book provides an answer.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120522T201618Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100209T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100209T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jedediah-berry-manual-detection URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jedediah-berry-manual-detection SUMMARY:Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection DESCRIPTION:Reminiscent of imaginative fiction from Jorge Luis Borges to Jasper Fforde yet dazzlingly original\, The Manual of Detection marks the debut of a prodigious young talent. Charles Unwin toils as a clerk at a huge\, imperious detective agency located in an unnamed city always slick with rain. When Travis Sivart\, the agency's most illustrious detective\, is murdered\, Unwin is suddenly promoted and must embark on an utterly bizarre quest for the missing investigator that leads him into the darkest corners of his soaking\, somnolent city. What ensues is a noir fantasy of exquisite craftsmanship\, as taut as it is mind- blowing\, that draws readers into a dream world that will change what they think about how they think.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120522T201618Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100210T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100210T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jonathan-metzl-protest-psychosis-how-schizophrenia-became-black-disease URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jonathan-metzl-protest-psychosis-how-schizophrenia-became-black-disease SUMMARY:Jonathan Metzl - The Protest Psychosis\: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease DESCRIPTION:THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO A LATER DATE.
Revolution was in the air in the 1960s. Civil rights protests demanded attention on the airwaves and in the streets. Anger gave way to revolt\, and revolt provided the elusive promise of actual change. But a very different civil rights history evolved at the Ionia State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Ionia\, Michigan. Here\, far from the national glare of sit-ins\, boycotts\, or riots\, African American men suddenly appeared in the asylum’s previously white\, locked wards. Some of these men came to the attention of the state after participating in civil rights demonstrations\, while others were sent by the military\, the penal system\, or the police. Though many of the men hailed from Detroit\, ambulances and paddy wagons brought men from other urban centers as well. Once at Ionia\, psychiatrists classified these men under a single diagnosis\: schizophrenia.
In The Protest Psychosis\, psychiatrist and cultural critic Jonathan Metzl tells the shocking story of how schizophrenia became the diagnostic term overwhelmingly applied to African American men at the Ionia State Hospital\, and how events at Ionia mirrored national conversations that increasingly linked blackness\, madness\, and civil rights. Expertly sifting through a vast array of cultural documents—from scientific literature\, to music lyrics\, to riveting\, tragic hospital charts—Metzl shows how associations between schizophrenia and blackness emerged during the 1960s and 1970s in ways that directly reflected national political events. As he demonstrates\, far from resulting from the racist intentions of individual doctors or the symptoms of specific patients\, racialized schizophrenia grew from a much wider set of cultural shifts that defined the thoughts\, actions\, and even the politics of black men as being inherently insane.
Ultimately\, The Protest Psychosis provides a cautionary tale of how anxieties about race continue to impact doctor-patient interactions\, even during our current\, seemingly post-race era of genetics\, pharmacokinetics\, and brain scans.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120522T201618Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100210T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100210T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/ted-jennings-ipeter-or-pauli-itransforming-atonementi URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/ted-jennings-ipeter-or-pauli-itransforming-atonementi SUMMARY:Ted Jennings - Plato or Paul? & Transforming Atonement DESCRIPTION:Ted Jennings will discuss his two latest books\, Plato or Paul? &\; Transforming Atonement\, at the Chicago Theological Seminary.
On Plato or Paul?\:
Jennings explores the notion that the origin of Western homophobia lies not in the biblical traditions of Judaism and Christianity but instead has its source in the Greek and Hellenistic sources (mainly the platonic philosophies) often assumed to have been accepting of same-sex eroticism.
Jennings is aware this concept goes against the grain of common opinion\, and therefore provides ample clarification from official statements of the Vatican and opinions of the United States Supreme Court\; texts from Plato and other Hellenistic perspectives\; and the writings of Paul.
On Transforming Atonement\:
Jennings' truly fresh understanding for Christians of the meaning of Jesus death specifically grounds the cross in the concrete political confrontation within which it occurred\, relates the message about the cross to the practice of Jesus (thus keeping in relationship the gospels and the theology of Paul)\, and shows how the cross bears on overcoming of human division and sin\, reconciliation to God\, and new forms of social reality in the community of the crucified.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120522T201618Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100211T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100211T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/linda-h-matthews-middling-folk-three-seas-three-centuries-one-scots-irish-family URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/linda-h-matthews-middling-folk-three-seas-three-centuries-one-scots-irish-family SUMMARY:Linda H. Matthews - Middling Folk\: Three Seas\, Three Centuries\, One Scots-Irish Family DESCRIPTION:Historians and biographers have traditionally favored stories of the powerful and the trends they set in motion. More recently\, they’ve spotlighted the neglected lives of the disenfranchised and dispossessed. “But\,” asks Linda H. Matthews\, descendant of the pragmatic\, adaptable\, and lively Hammill family\, “who tells the stories of the people in the middle?”
Spanning three centuries and three seas\, from the bluffs of Scotland and Ireland to colonial Chesapeake Bay and Virginia\, then across the expanding nation into the Pacific Northwest\, Middling Folk makes the compelling case that the experiences of the middle classes--those who “quietly\, century after century\, conducted the business and built the livelihoods that made their societies prosper”--reveal a great deal about the founding of the United States and the ways in which customs and traditions are perpetuated through the generations.
Matthews combines meticulous research and deft storytelling to show how the Scots-Irish Hammills--millers\, wagon makers\, and blacksmiths--lived out their lives against a backdrop of the American Revolution\, the Civil War\, and westward expansion. Readers will come away with a newfound respect for the ordinary families who helped shape this country and managed to hold their own through turbulent times.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120522T201618Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100212T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100212T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/writers-record-wells-tower URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/writers-record-wells-tower SUMMARY:Writers on the Record\: Wells Tower DESCRIPTION:Wells Tower will discuss his debut collection of short stories\, Everything Ravaged\, Everything Burned.
Viking marauders descend on a much-plundered island\, hoping some mayhem will shake off the winter blahs. A man is booted out of his home after his wife discovers that the print of a bare foot on the inside of his windshield doesn’t match her own. Teenage cousins\, drugged by summer\, meet with a reckoning in the woods. A boy runs off to the carnival after his stepfather bites him in a brawl.
In the stories of Wells Tower\, families fall apart and messily try to reassemble themselves. His version of America is touched with the seamy splendor of the dropout\, the misfit\: failed inventors\, boozy dreamers\, hapless fathers\, wayward sons. Combining electric prose with savage wit\, Everything Ravaged\, Everything Burned is a major debut\, announcing a voice we have not heard before.
The free\, hour-long interview is a partnership between the Chicago Public Library and 98.7WFMT radio\, with a taping at 6\:00 p.m. in the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium at the Harold Washington Library Center\, 400 S. State Street. The interview will be broadcast at noon on Sunday\, February 14th. The Seminary Co-Op Bookstores sells books at the event\, which is underwritten by Graver Capital Management LLC. The events are free\, no reservations required\, with seating on a first-come basis.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120522T201618Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100212T003000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100212T003000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/james-kennedy-order-odd-fish URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/james-kennedy-order-odd-fish SUMMARY:James Kennedy - The Order of Odd-Fish DESCRIPTION:Jo LaRouche has lived her 13 years in the California desert with her Aunt Lily\, ever since she was dropped on Lily’s doorstep with this note\: This is Jo. Please take care of her. But beware. This is a dangerous baby. At Lily’s annual Christmas costume party\, a variety of strange events take place that lead Jo and Lily out of California forever—and into the mysterious\, strange\, fantastical world of Eldritch City. There\, Jo learns the scandalous truth about who she is\, and she and Lily join the Order of Odd-Fish\, a collection of knights who research useless information. Glamorous cockroach butlers\, pointless quests\, obsolete weapons\, and bizarre festivals fill their days\, but two villains are controlling their fate. Jo is inching closer and closer to the day when her destiny is fulfilled\, and no one in Eldritch City will ever be the same.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120522T201618Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100219T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100219T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/world-beyond-headlines-joseph-stiglitz URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/world-beyond-headlines-joseph-stiglitz SUMMARY:World Beyond the Headlines\: Joseph Stiglitz DESCRIPTION:The current global financial crisis carries a "\;made-in-America"\; label. In this forthright and incisive book\, Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz explains how America exported bad economics\, bad policies\, and bad behavior to the rest of the world\, only to cobble together a haphazard and ineffective response when the markets finally seized up. Drawing on his academic expertise\, his years spent shaping policy in the Clinton administration and at the World Bank\, and his more recent role as head of a UN commission charged with reforming the global financial system\, Stiglitz outlines a way forward building on ideas that he has championed his entire career\: restoring the balance between markets and government\, addressing the inequalities of the global financial system\, and demanding more good ideas (and less ideology) from economists. Freefall is an instant classic\, combining an enthralling whodunit account of the current crisis with a bracing discussion of the broader economic issues at stake.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120522T201618Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100223T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100223T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/khalil-gibran-muhammad-condemnation-blackness URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/khalil-gibran-muhammad-condemnation-blackness SUMMARY:Khalil Gibran Muhammad - The Condemnation of Blackness DESCRIPTION:Lynch mobs\, chain gangs\, and popular views of black southern criminals that defined the Jim Crow South are well known. We know less about the role of the urban North in shaping views of race and crime in American society.
Following the 1890 census\, the first to measure the generation of African Americans born after slavery\, crime statistics\, new migration and immigration trends\, and symbolic references to America as the promised land of opportunity were woven into a cautionary tale about the exceptional threat black people posed to modern urban society. Excessive arrest rates and overrepresentation in northern prisons were seen by many whites--liberals and conservatives\, northerners and southerners--as indisputable proof of blacks' inferiority. In the heyday of "\;separate but equal\,"\; what else but pathology could explain black failure in the "\;land of opportunity"\;?
The idea of black criminality was crucial to the making of modern urban America\, as were African Americans' own ideas about race and crime. Chronicling the emergence of deeply embedded notions of black people as a dangerous race of criminals by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants\, this fascinating book reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120522T201618Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100224T003000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100224T003000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/martha-nussbaum-disgust-humanity-sexual-orientation-and-constitutional-law URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/martha-nussbaum-disgust-humanity-sexual-orientation-and-constitutional-law SUMMARY:Martha Nussbaum - From Disgust to Humanity\: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law DESCRIPTION:In From Disgust to Humanity\, Nussbaum aims her considerable intellectual firepower at the bulwark of opposition to gay equality\: the politics of disgust.
Nussbaum argues that disgust has long been among the fundamental motivations of those who are fighting for legal discrimination against lesbian and gay citizens. When confronted with same-sex acts and relationships\, she writes\, they experience "\;a deep aversion akin to that inspired by bodily wastes\, slimy insects\, and spoiled food--and then cite that very reaction to justify a range of legal restrictions\, from sodomy laws to bans on same-sex marriage."\; Leon Kass\, former head of President Bush's President's Council on Bioethics\, even argues that this repugnance has an inherent "\;wisdom\,"\; steering us away from destructive choices. Nussbaum believes that the politics of disgust must be confronted directly\, for it contradicts the basic principle of the equality of all citizens under the law. "\;It says that the mere fact that you happen to make me want to vomit is reason enough for me to treat you as a social pariah\, denying you some of your most basic entitlements as a citizen."\; In its place she offers a "\;politics of humanity\,"\; based not merely on respect\, but something akin to love\, an uplifting imaginative engagement with others\, an active effort to see the world from their perspectives\, as fellow human beings. Combining rigorous analysis of the leading constitutional cases with philosophical reflection about underlying concepts of privacy\, respect\, discrimination\, and liberty\, Nussbaum discusses issues ranging from non-discrimination and same-sex marriage to "\;public sex."\; Recent landmark decisions suggest that the views of state and federal courts are shifting toward a humanity-centered vision\, and Nussbaum's powerful arguments will undoubtedly advance that cause.
The stories that make up this linked collection showcase ordinary men and women in and around Rugglesville\, Virginia\, as they struggle to find places and identities in their families and the community. They experience natural disasters\, a sun-worshipping cult\, Vietnam flashbacks\, kidnapping\, addiction\, and loss. The book's opening story\, "\;Flood\, 1978\,"\; follows Hank\, who comes to understand his father's deep sense of grief over the death of his wife. Later\, in "\;Hand-painted Angel\,"\; Hank's sons see the family spinning apart as their father ages and family secrets are disclosed. In "\;The Clattering of Bones\,"\; Walt mourns the collapse of his marriage after the loss of a child\, but in the collection's title story he recognizes his emotional need for family. The concluding story\, "\;Red Peony\,"\; unifies the collection\, as many of the book's characters come together for a tumultuous 4th of July Celebration.
END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR